In an ideal world, when a contending team makes a trade for a big-name player before the July 31 non-waiver deadline, they would soon sign the newcomer to a long-term deal.

If that doesn’t happen, the trade can feel lopsided. A few days before the 2012 trade deadline, for example, the Angels made a bold move for free-agent-to-be Zack Greinke. They sent three prospects to the Brewers, including Jean Segura, who has since established himself as Milwaukee’s shortstop of the present and future.

Greinke made 13 starts for the Angels and was very good (a 3.53 ERA), but the Angels missed the playoffs and Greinke left as a free agent that offseason despite the team’s best efforts to re-sign him. Because he was a midseason acquisition, the Angels didn’t even get a draft pick as compensation when he jumped to the Dodgers.

That was pretty much the worst-case scenario for the Angels.

But don’t confuse that debacle with the pursuit of David Price at 2014’s trade deadline.

Any contending team that meets Tampa Bay’s prospect price—should the Rays actually decide to trade him, obviously—is getting a former Cy Young winner who is under club control through the end of the 2015 season.

And, sure, that acquiring team would love to sign him to a long-term deal before he hits the free-agent market (who wouldn’t want this lefty at the top of their rotation for the next six or seven years?). But assuming he stays healthy through 2015, and his track record there is pretty solid, the worst-case scenario for the acquiring team involves very little “worst.”

That team will get two full playoff runs with Price—who turns 29 in August and has a 3.06 ERA this year with a crazy-good 8.24 K/BB ratio—and then, even if he refuses to engage in long-term talks, that team will get a compensation first-round pick in the 2016 draft that will likely be around No. 27 to 30 overall (depending on other free-agent signings).

So let’s look at a bottom-line scenario as it plays out for the Cardinals, a team that has been consistently tied to Price discussions, for good reason. Because of injuries to key members of the rotation (Michael Wacha and Jaime Garcia), they have the need for another top-level starter who they trust in a postseason situation. And they have the prospects/young major-leaguers who would be enough to get the deal done.

Here’s another factor: There’s every reason to believe St. Louis will be one of the handful of legitimate World Series contenders both this year and next year, that Price will have a chance to make an impact in October—the reason teams want him—both years. The Cardinals won the World Series in 2011, went to the NLCS in 2012 and lost the World Series in 2013, and have largely the same core of players from those teams.

Should St. Louis add Price to Adam Wainwright at the top of the rotation for the next two Octobers, no team, save the Dodgers (Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke) could match that combo. And, true, Price’s postseason numbers (5.06 ERA) don’t match his regular-season numbers (career 3.17 ERA), but he did earn the complete-game win for the Rays last September in the Game 163 tiebreaker against Texas to claim the final wild-card berth.

He could be a disaster in the playoffs in a Cardinals uniform. Anything’s possible. But his shoddy postseason numbers represent a very tiny sample size (32 innings), and it’s reasonable to believe his larger body of work (3.03 ERA in 986 1/3 innings in his past five seasons) is good enough to roll the October dice going forward. The possibility of having four games of every seven-game playoff series in 2014-15 started by either Wainwright or Price has to be intoxicating for the St. Louis front office.

The Cardinals would prefer to hold onto Taveras, who is the type of player who could win an MVP and be a perennial All-Star. But that’s why Tampa Bay will almost certainly insist he’s included, so hypothetically, let’s say the Rays demand Taveras and Miller, plus a lower-level prospect or two. That’s in line with previous returns for traded starters James Shields (Wil Myers, plus others) and Matt Garza (Chris Archer, plus others).

Yes, that cost is high, and yes, the Cardinals would hate the idea of giving up so many cost-controlled years for young players. But St. Louis has developed the type of farm system that has depth, and they’d be dealing from positions of strength. They have a plethora of outfielders, in the minors (the four players mentioned above) and the majors (Matt Holliday, Allen Craig, John Jay and Peter Bourjos are all signed or under club control through 2016).

And though you can never have too many young arms, they do have a bit of depth there, too, including the two first-round right-handers they took in the 2014 draft. The point of developing this type of productive farm system is to increase the quality of the parent club, either by having prospects contribute at the big-league level (as has been the case often during the Cardinals’ current run of sustained success) or by using them in trades to acquire proven talent to fill an important need (like the 2009 trade-deadline move for Holliday).

For many organizations, trading the type of talent necessary to land Price might crush their overall farm system quality. That’s just not the case for St. Louis.

The Cardinals’ front office could decide that dealing that kind of talent for any pitcher is just too risky, and that’s a reasonable thought, with the startling number of Tommy John surgeries the past few years. But if that’s the case, there’s zero chance of adding any October-impact arm.

And the Cardinals would love some type of reassurance before making any deal that Price would consider a long-term extension with the club. They can’t actually ask him, of course, but there are reasons to believe he would. As many have pointed out, he’s from Tennessee and played college ball at Vanderbilt in Nashville, which is only a six-hour drive from Busch Stadium. He has expressed a desire to play with a perennial contender, and the Cardinals certainly fit that qualification.

But let’s say, for argument’s sake, that Price decides after the 2015 season that he doesn’t want to stay with the Cardinals, that he wants to sign his mega-deal elsewhere. So, worst-case (again, assuming he stays healthy), St. Louis would get two playoff runs with Price in the rotation and then get to select a top-30 talent in the 2016 draft.

And if he signs elsewhere, the Cardinals have the financial freedom of not guaranteeing a pitcher in the neighborhood of $23 million a year through 2021, which is a reasonable guesstimate of what he’d get on the open market (plus the possible no-trade clause and opt-out option that are common with big-money deals these days).

Whether they would be able to re-sign him or not, that’s a pretty good return, especially considering how much Price could potentially increase their chances of winning the World Series each of the next two years.

The Cardinals have reached the Fall Classic four times in the past 10 years, winning in 2006 and 2011. They’ve reached the NLCS four other times since 2000. The goal should be winning championships, not merely making the playoffs on a consistent basis, and trading for Price would be a big step toward the franchise’s 12th—and maybe 13th?—World Series title.